Sunday, February 21, 2016

U.S. Agreed to North Korea Peace Talks Before Latest Nuclear Test

I find this more than a little incredible. First, I although I find much with which to disagree regarding foreign policy and national security with the administration I am very skeptical that the President and anyone in the administration would have such a lack of understanding of the nature of the Kim Family Regime or its strategy. A few things we should keep in mind in addition to the fact that north Korea is not Iran and if anyone thinks that we could negotiate with north Korea as we just did with Iran then he or she fails to recall the history of the Agreed Framework.

First, the US has not real standing to negotiate a peace treaty. Our position should be that a peace treaty to end the Korean War has to be negotiated between north and South Korea. Although we fought in the Korean War we did so under UN authorities and in fact the Armistice in 1953 was negotiated between the north Koreans, the Chinese Peoples' Volunteers, and the United Nations. The US and the ROK are not signatories to the Armistice (the US commander signed for the UN). The US can of course enter into negotiations and make security guarantees in return for the dismantling of the north's nuclear program but it should not enter into a peace treaty to end the war, especially if not done in complete lock-step with the ROK.

We should also understand why the north wants a peace treaty with the US. It wants to split the ROK/US alliance and get US forces off the peninsula so that it will be able to reunify the peninsula by force. As far fetched as that might sound to some the north's strategy has been well known and articulated for decades. And of course negotiating a separate peace with the US also supports another key element of the regime's strategy which is to split the ROK/US alliance. I have to believe that there are those in the administration who know and understand this which is why I am very skeptical of this supposed offer for negotiations. No one can possibly think that the Iran model can be applied to north Korea now. As I have said traditional or conventional international relations theoretical approaches are not applicable to the Kim Family Regime.

However, if this is true and did in fact occur then we should take some solace in knowing that we can confirm the nature of the Kim Family Regime and its strategy. The engagers and those who believe that if we simply need to give the north what they want and the regime will then denuclearize and live peacefully should no longer be living under the illusion or delusion that the north can act as a responsible member of the international community.

On the other hand we should also realize that if this did occur it confirms what many have thought. This is calling the north's bluff. By committing to peace negotiations and if a peace treaty could by some miracle be concluded, the north's very legitimacy would be undercut. The north actually does not want nor can it have a peace treaty with the US because it is the US as an enemy that provides the legitimacy and rationale for the regime and its oppression of the Korean people living in the north. More importantly it is the justification for the large military and if there was no need for a large military the regime could be threatened with collapse. We should note that it is the coherency and support of the military that is one of the two key elements that prevent regime collapse, the other being the ability of the regime (through the Party) to govern from the center (Pyongyang). The loss of military support and coherency would cause regime collapse. Therefore the regime cannot enter into peace negotiations.

So the bottom line is if this is a true report then someone in the administration either does not really understand the regime ORthe administration has actually undertaken one of the best deception operations to call the north's bluff and to ensure the US has the moral high ground to implement the toughest sanctions regime and ultimately change the US strategy from simply deterrence and defense and trying to eliminate the north's nuclear program to one that focuses on what comes next after the Kim Family Regime. That of course is unification because as I have said many times, it is my belief that we will never see an end to the nuclear and missile programs and the crimes against humanity being perpetrated against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim Family Regime except through unification and the establishment of a United Republic of Korea (UROK). This action by the administration may have been to give the north one last chance and now we have complete justification to move beyond our current strategic paralysis and focus on the only way out of this complex situation. We will have to see the next steps in the US and the ROK/US strategy to determine whether the administration really does understand the Kim Family Regime and if it has taken perhaps one of the more sophisticated foreign policy actions in the last 8 years.

U.S. Agreed to North Korea Peace Talks Before Latest Nuclear Test

Pyongyang rejected condition that nuclear arms would be on the agenda—and then carried out atomic test

Days before North Korea’s latest nuclear-bomb test, the Obama administration secretly agreed to talks to try to formally end the Korean War, dropping a longstanding condition that Pyongyang first take steps to curtail its nuclear arsenal.

Instead the U.S. called for North Korea’s atomic-weapons program to be simply part of the talks. Pyongyang declined the counter-proposal, according to U.S. officials familiar with the events. Its nuclear test on Jan. 6 ended the diplomatic gambit.

The episode, in an exchange at the United Nations, was one of several unsuccessful attempts that American officials say they made to discuss denuclearization with North Korea during President Barack Obama’s second term while also negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program.

Mr. Obama has pointed to the Iran deal to signal to North Korea that he is open to a similar track with the regime of Kim Jong Un. But the White House sees North Korea as far more opaque and uncooperative. The latest fruitless exchanges typified diplomacy between the U.S. and Pyongyang in recent years.

Since taking power at the end of 2011, Mr. Kim has stepped up the North’s demands for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, 63 years after it ended with an armistice. Many analysts see the move as an attempt to force the removal of the U.S. military in the South. The U.S. insists denuclearization must have priority, and said that has to be part of any peace talks, even while dropping the precondition that North Korea first take steps that show a willingness to give up its nuclear program.

Search This Blog

Follow by Email

David S. Maxwell is a 30-year veteran of the US Army retiring as a Special
Forces Colonel with his final assignment serving on the military faculty
teaching national security at the National War College. He spent the majority
of his military service overseas with over twenty years in Asia, primarily in
Korea, Japan, and the Philippines leading organizations from the A-Team to the
Joint Special Operations Task Force level.

He
hails from Madison, Connecticut and is a 1980 graduate of Miami University in
Oxford, Ohio with a BA in Political Science and has Masters Degrees in Military
Arts and Science and National Security Studies from the U.S. Army Command and
General Staff College, the School of Advanced Military Studies, and the
National War College of the National Defense University. He received his
commission from the Officer Candidate School in 1981.

In addition, he is a fellow at the
Institute of Corean-American Studies (ICAS) and on the Board of Directors for the
Small Wars Journal, The International Council of Korean Studies (ICKS) and the
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK). He is a Life Member of the
Special Forces Association and the National War College Alumni
Association.

He is currently studying in the
Doctorate of Liberal Studies program at Georgetown University and teaches SEST
604: Unconventional Warfare and Special Operations for Policy Makers and
Strategists.

Welcome

The purpose of this site is to share information on national security issues with anyone who has an interest in these topics. My focus is on National Security Issues of Policy and Strategy; Asia, with particular emphasis on Korea and China, as well as Special Warfare (Unconventional Warfare and Foreign Internal Defense) and Surgical Strike (Counterterrorism) and how they relate to US National Security.

I am using a format similar to the email messages I send to about 1000 colleagues on my private email list serve that I have been managing since 1997. Each entry will include the title of the news article, the first few paragraphs and a link to the entire article. My comments will be in blue arial font and key excerpts/quotes from the article will be in the article's original format. As a good Soldier always strives to improve his fighting position, I will endeavor to improve this site.

Also follow on twitter at @davidmaxwell161

Disclaimer

All opinions expressed on this site are the author's own.

Thought for the Day

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." - Confucius